Up for Debate: Phone records, email and Congress

Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 1:50am

Do you see any surprises in how our federal officials voted on the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 or the Patriot Act extension? How would you have voted and how do you feel about the enactment and extension of these programs?

141 Comments on this post:

I'm never surprised by a law our government passes. They have passed laws to control [we the citizens] 'one step at a time' for decades.

By:Libertine on 6/18/13 at 6:33

City Paper failed to mention that Obama could have vetoed any of the extensions that he decried as evil when he was a Senator. Obama has only expanded the programs, not curbed them. I guess it is nice to be King.

By:Captain Nemo on 6/18/13 at 6:51

Kings are born to be Kings. Presidents are elected. President Obama is like any other person in office. Reality comes into play.

By:Blanketnazi2 on 6/18/13 at 7:37

Libertine, can you imagine the outrage he would have received from the right if he did? He would be accused of making us less safe. God knows we already hear the hysterics of the right accusing him of signing radical Executive Orders (which he has not and he has signed less of them than other presidents). No matter what Obama does he is blasted by the obstructionists. And Nemo is right - he was legally elected.

By:Blanketnazi2 on 6/18/13 at 7:38

BTW, he didn't expand the programs - Congress did. And guess who in Congress voted on the measures? It's not like Obama acted alone.

By:yogiman on 6/18/13 at 7:46

How was he legally elected if he wasn't legally eligible to run, B2? Was he telling another lie when he said he advertised he was born in Kenya?

By:yogiman on 6/18/13 at 7:48

Sorry, eating and typing isn't too good.: Omit "he said".

By:Captain Nemo on 6/18/13 at 7:54

We the people think yogi is a stupid troll.

By:Blanketnazi2 on 6/18/13 at 7:55

yogi, we've been through this a million times and I'm not debating you today. He is in office legally - get over it.

By:Blanketnazi2 on 6/18/13 at 7:56

Nemo, at least he supports the causes of the ACLU these days! LOL

By:Captain Nemo on 6/18/13 at 7:56

I am having fun with the rights outrage. They feel like they are being screwed over and they are the ones doing it to themselves.

By:Captain Nemo on 6/18/13 at 7:58

The ACLU needs his endorsement like they need smallpox.

By:Blanketnazi2 on 6/18/13 at 7:59

LOL

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 8:01

yogi the LIAR is lying again. Slopping down food, slobbering all over the computer, just to post more LIES. Proven fact, anything yogi puts on the board is a LIE!

By:govskeptic on 6/18/13 at 8:08

Funny, many of the earlier supporters are now opponents and many early
objectors (like the President & others) are now supporters. Another huge and
very clumsy, yet extremely expensive bill that most legislators knew little
about (and the citizenry even less) until all the consequences starts to unfold.

Bills like this one along with the un coming Immigration Bill are just too massive
for one law and vote. Broken down to 5 or 6 different parts and votes would be
far better and understandable by more voters and legislators. Lamar's votes are
always what best suits his "Washington Insider" reputation and retirement lifestyle.

By:yogiman on 6/18/13 at 8:10

OK, you Obama fans,

Here's another lie for your feeble minds. Was Obama lying when he said he was born to a single mother when he was talking to students in Colorado? I don't think so. Why? Because there has never been any evidence she was married to his father.

The address given in the paper announcing his birth was his grandparents address. At that time his mother and supposed father had different addresses. I wonder why. Weren't the even 'shacking up'?

By:Jughead on 6/18/13 at 8:17

Balls.

By:yogiman on 6/18/13 at 8:20

The US was a great nation for almost 200 years, govskeptic. Then congress discovered they could write their own books and take over. They've been in that process since they passed a retirement benefit bill for Harry Truman.

They've come forward 'one step at a time' since then. They've set their own salary, their own staffs and their staffs' benefits, their own retirement program and their own medical benefits.

Ain't it good to tell your employers what they must do to keep you occupying their office?

By:yogiman on 6/18/13 at 8:22

I believe you mean 'Nuts', Jughead. There's a bunch of them on this site with so many nuts in their heads instead of brains.

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 8:24

yogi - might have been in Colorado when Obama was speaking, but he couldn't hear anything because he was the slime under the feet of the audience & too busy getting stepped on. Therefore, still LYING & can't attest to anything Obama said.

By:Captain Nemo on 6/18/13 at 8:27

Former vice president Dick Cheney. (reuters)

Former vice president Dick Cheney said Sunday that Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was wrong to suggest that the government’s recently revealed sweeping surveillance techniques are an invasion of Americans’ privacy.

“Two-thirds of the Congress wasn’t here on 9/11, or for that period immediately after when we got into this program,” Cheney said on “Fox News Sunday.” He later added: “When you consider the possibility of somebody smuggling something like a nuclear device into the United States, it becomes very, very important to gather intelligence on your enemies and stop that attack before it ever gets launched.”

By:yogiman on 6/18/13 at 8:28

It hasn't been a million time, B2, and this is not a debate. I've offered scores of evidence given by Barack Obama (if that's his name) himself, but you haven't offered one piece of evidence proving he is eligible. Why not, don't you have any?

By:Blanketnazi2 on 6/18/13 at 8:32

gdiafante and I among others have disproven everything you've posted. You refuse to acknowledge it. I can't help it if you have no reading comprehension or are too stubborn to face the truth. You have no "evidence."

By:Captain Nemo on 6/18/13 at 8:35

I agree with you govskeptic. In their urgency to be the most patriotic, congress grabs on to anything that would give that illusion to the voters.

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 8:38

Blanket Amen! - Evidence has been posted to yogi many, many times. He evidently doesn't have brains enough to comprehend what is posted, so he just keeps posting his LIES 24/7.

By:yogiman on 6/18/13 at 8:38

bfra,

Go to www.wnd.com/2012/09/obama-changes-his-story-born-to-a-single-mom/

Was it just another 'bull session'? Why did his mother take him to Washington two weeks after he was born? Why did she leave her 'husband' two weeks after "their" child was born? Didn't she think he would be a good father?

There's too many pieces in that stack of hay, kid. Start digging deeper and find that needle.

By:Captain Nemo on 6/18/13 at 8:42

budlight and I have a mutual agreement.

By: budlight on 6/17/13 at 10:07

please stop encouraging jughead. Ygoi, he is making this a porn site. Jug, get some therapy

By:Captain Nemo on 6/18/13 at 8:44

The Village Idiot is a waste of time people. Ignore the fool today and be better off for it.

By:Jughead on 6/18/13 at 8:44

One thing is certain: Obama did not snoop for security purposes. He snooped to quash political opposition.

And that is what is frightening---the libtards in the US are fine with this. Self-anointed, holier-than-thou preachers who turn the other cheek when the criminal is one of there own.

Did I ever mention that i HATE liberals?

Really--I would be fine if they all caught AIDs and died. Every one of them.

By:Jughead on 6/18/13 at 8:45

their, not there. Need coffee...

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 8:52

yogi - My time is more valuable than reading your trash, rumor sites. You live to read & post LIES. That is a sorry mission in life. No wonder you have no friends & your family shuns you, nobody likes LIARS.

By:yogiman on 6/18/13 at 8:55

So tell me, B2,

If Barry is in that office legally, why has he refused to identify himself? Wouldn't it have been cheaper to spend 20 bucks to get his birth certificate and say [here it is, look at it] than spending almost 2 million dollars to keep it locked up?

I know, he can afford it, but with common sense and that office, why does he refuse to?

Haven't you ever wondered why the Hawaiian governor (an old friend of his grandparents) can't order the health dept. to present Barry's birth certificate to be shown?

I understand he tried but they, for some odd reason, they just couldn't find it.

You keep posting you've proven it to me but you can't seem to remember what proof you threw at me. How about trying it one more time.

Please explain to me how a dual citizen is a natural born American citizen even though he claims he was born in another nation.

By:yogiman on 6/18/13 at 9:01

bfra,

You're a joke. Tell me, how do you know so much about my family. Can you give me their names and addresses? How about giving me their phone numbers so I can harass them for hating me.

I'm sure you have all of that information. Or you can always get it from dumba$$. He seems to even know who I am so I'm sure he knows all about my family.

By the way, how many kids do I have?

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 9:09

yogi - ALL LIARS like to brag. You & bud like to also post your personal info, that nobody cares about. If you had a brain, you could use it to figure out some of the answers to your ever stupid questions.

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 9:17

yogi - BTW I have no idea how many lil goats you have running around. Smirk

Disgusting. I truly despise this piece of garbage, and all who support him.

By:BenDover on 6/18/13 at 9:27

It's interesting to me how the NSA, FBI, IRS, et al can get into the weeds on citizens in the Tea Party or reporters like the AP and Sharyl Attkisson who are Obama critics, spying and running interference; yet miss that little tid-bit from Russia about the crazy Islamists who blew up the Boston Marathon.

And what was Obama doing when the 4:00am call came about Benghazi?

They pulled him off the golf course for a photo-op when they got Bin Laden. Certainly they'd have enough sense to roust the President out of bed when an Ambassador and embassy staff are being raped, mutilated and murdered on 9/11 in the streets of another country you just gave to the Jihadists.

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 9:35

Ben you do better with the TARP, TARP, TARP! Your bias & jealousy shows every time you put Obama in your comments. At least he wasn't sitting in a classroom reading a children's book and then just stared like a deer in the headlights.

By:Jughead on 6/18/13 at 9:51

We were much safer under Bush, and you libf*&^cks know it.

Did I ever mention that I HATE liberals?

By:BenDover on 6/18/13 at 9:57

Oh yeah... Obama also blew all the TARP repayments; and on top of that jacked spending up so that we ran deficits $1,000.000.000,000 a year over the previous trend-line; while at the same time maintaining unemployment at ~8% for 4 years (not including all the people who dropped out of the workforce) AFTER the recession was officially over in June of 2009.

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 10:02

Ben - You are getting close to yogi on your stretching the truth & lies. Really bites you in the butt that the economy is improving with Obama, after Bush/Chaney drug it down to rock bottom. Get over it Ben, the GOP might come up with someone smart enough for a candidate sometime in the next 50 yrs.

By:budlight on 6/18/13 at 10:04

Did anyone else read the following or hear about it?

"News that was NOT announced publicly by the United States government, that is.
In an unprecedented agreement, the U.S. Treasury has agreed to give China direct access to its auctions Per the deal, China is allowed to bypass Wall Street, and purchase Treasury Bills without placing any bids through primary dealers.
The deal wasn't announced publicly or in any message to primary dealers.
Never before... Not in the entire 237-year history of this great country has any foreign government been granted such intimate access to Capitol Hill."

This is scarey and if it's true can someone tell me why our country, ie, obama would do this.

Ben, Obama was getting his beauty rest while the ambassador was being slain. But at least he wasn't sitting in a classroom reading a childrens' book as bfra said. How stupid for bfra to even think Obama was doing the right thing. He probably knew about the plan to invade the embassy before it happened or else why be so casual about it.

By:BenDover on 6/18/13 at 10:06

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pet_Goat

By:Jughead on 6/18/13 at 10:06

It would not surprise me if Obama authorized the slaughter at Benghazi in exchange for favors from his Muslim pals.

By:BenDover on 6/18/13 at 10:13

Facts is facts bfra. Bush's last year deficit had a huge offsetting receivable that was repaid with interest.

Obama blew all those repayments and then used the exception spending level as a new base-line resulting in deficits $1Trillion dollars a year over the earlier trend-line.

Recovery is largely localized to states who have taken the conservative path and the DC area where our grandchildren's future tax obligations are being p!ssed away to try to prop up bad Keynesian fiscal policy where the promise of a reckoning (in the form of inflation, higher taxes and higher interest rate on our national debt), is overpowering any possible stimulus benefit except to those people directly receiving the stimulus.

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 10:20

Ben is that as high as your reading comprehension goes? Thought so!

Ben thinks Bush/Chaney left us is such a grand situation, Obama just dreamed up all these debts they ran up trying to get that Iraqy oil & FAILED. Ben thinks they should throw another billion dollar party on an aircraft carrier so Bush can wear his zoot (flyboy) suit again. Ben is a HOOT!

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 10:21

OH! Ben you & yogi would know FACTS if they smashed you in your face!

By:BenDover on 6/18/13 at 10:26

Your confirmation bias doesn't allow you to see fact, bfra.

http://i.imgur.com/raEhBwP.jpg

By:bfra on 6/18/13 at 10:28

Ben - If you ever put any FACTS on the board, I will consider it after research.